


New Year's Eve

by staticfiction



Category: The Rose (Band)
Genre: Alternative Universe - Contemporary Romance, F/M, Fluff, New Year's Eve, New Year's Fluff, New Year's Kiss, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:27:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22001890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staticfiction/pseuds/staticfiction
Summary: Your heart is under attack, and you defend yourself the only way you know how. It might involve kissing.
Relationships: Park Dojoon | Leo/Original Character(s), Park Dojoon | Leo/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> idk. it just happened. none of it is real. it's all made up. the laws of physics don't matter. is a mess. enter at your own risk.

If I have to stand here for five more minutes, I just might result to murder.

Do note, please and thank you, that I very much do not condone violence and it is hardly ever my impulse reaction to anything. Least of all at New Year’s parties at my mother’s when just about the whole neighbourhood and their visiting relatives are in attendance. Truly, I am a pacifist by nature, but—some higher power help me—if someone asks me yet again about my love life, or lack thereof, I just might go full-on rage mode and Hulk Smash my way through the decor and the dinner. One can only imagine the disappointed looks I will receive from my mother should that come to be.

Nevertheless, I shall soldier on. After all, I promised my mother my full participation, and that means more than just my attendance. I love my mother, I do. While she often question my life choices, and we might not see eye to eye on a growing number of things as the years add on, I have come to accept that this is simply a fact of life. Mother continually supports me and, in her own way, I know she believes in me and in the success I want to define my life by, so in spite of myself here I am.

But one can only be at the receiving end of so much judgment and mental strain for so long.

Holding back a long-suffering sigh, I excuse myself from the group of aunties who have held me hostage for the past twenty minutes. Like the good daughter my mother brought me up to be, I came by to greet them properly, an exit strategy already at hand because swift exits are the key to surviving these family things. Unfortunately, I was cornered on all four sides and had no choice but entertain their increasingly invasive questions.

Mostly about my relationship status.

Just because I’m single doesn’t mean I am unhappy. I happen to live a full and fulfilled life, and while most people might not think a PhD in acoustic physics doesn’t count for exciting times, I can confidently say that through the years I’ve been working the lab and field, I have experienced the full spectrum of human—and, I swear, non-human—emotions. On any other day, I can, with all genuine honesty, say I don’t think I am missing out. But I would be lying if I were to say it doesn’t get lonely sometimes.

Because there’s nothing quite like the holidays when everyone and their mothers are flaunting off how Not Alone they are. And while I know deep in my heart that I am not alone, I’ve got wonderful friends and an insufferable but loving family, it does get lonely. The problem is I can never separate the feelings of loneliness and envy. Rationally, I know better than to compare, and often I can convince myself that wanting what other people have is just a matter of the human condition and external in attribution. However sometimes, like right now, I can’t help but feel as though I really am missing out on something.

I suppose I could use some social interaction, but also…

When you really think about it, a spiked peppermint mocha can be a really good friend—has been a really good friend to me throughout the yearly holidays—so it’s really the same thing as mingling. And, okay, fine, lurking in the back wall, isn’t exactly the socialising I promised my mother, but I need a break from the crossfire of questions asking:

  1. If I’ve brought a date, and if so where is he?
  2. If I am even dating at all, and if not why ever not? (and, underhandedly, whatever is so wrong with me that I am undateable?)
  3. If I’m not worried about my biological clock ticking toward its deadline; and
  4. Why I haven’t considered several digital and traditional matchmaking services because nothing quite speaks of Womanly Success than a man to take care of me and children of my own to take care of.
  5. And my personal favorite (not) “My son/nephew/godson/friend’s son is single, would you like to meet him?”

Because all this is clearly everyone’s mother’s business. Clearly.

Anyway, the lodge was packed as it usually was, even without my mother inviting her entire Facebook group over for a potluck New Year’s Eve dinner. Some of the guests from the ski resort have wandered in from the cold and have settled in front of the lobby fireplace. Mostly couples. Some families with small children. But mostly groups of couples with their other couple friends. You know it’s the holidays when everyone’s out on a date. I want to be happy for them, I really do, but having them around only makes my singleness more apparent and my mother cannot stress this fact loudly enough. And even that is considerably more tolerable punishment than her insurmountable impatience with me were I to skip tonight’s festivities.

Technically, I am also on duty, helping out at the family business over my break, but it seems like my mother has other plans and has explicitly given the staff permission to report back to her should I escape into busyness as I am wont to do. Hence the lurking in the corner nursing a hot mug of spiked coffee.

I should have brought a book, but the last time I did that my mother pinched me under the arm and made me sit with the other people my age in hopes of making a love match. I could pretend to be on my phone, doing something super important like finally completing that list of achievements on that otome game I’ve been playing, but trust my mother to scold me about putting my phone away. Because, apparently, I am eighteen and not twenty-eight.

Feedback rings across the room, causing several heads to duck and cover their ears. Someone mutters an apology into the mic and the feedback echoes away. On the makeshift platform up front is a band set up—guitars, a drum kit, and a synthesizer—and the boys I can’t seem to get rid of. True, our lives have drifted apart after high school, as lives do upon leaving the suffocating environment of one’s hometown. True, our new adult lives are not that far apart, we do live in the same city, within blocks of each other according to the mothers, seemingly reinforcing that we are inevitable in each other’s lives. Also true, it’s not as though I made any effort to move so far away so as to run in a completely different circle. Familiarity does have its advantages, but it’s not familiarity exactly that ties us together.

I’m not sure what it is, but I’m also not entirely enthusiastic about finding out either. The boys tune up, test their mics one more time, and turn their gazes toward their audience. Before I can look away, I lock eyes with Park Dojoon.

I lift my mug to my lips as though I didn’t see him, but I feel his eyes on me just the same. For how long he intends to keep the stare, I don’t know for sure. It can’t have been more than a few seconds that have passed since, but even now it feels never-ending. Slowly, the corner of his lips lift into a smirk that becomes a smile, and then he winks at me.

Fortunately, the mug in my face hides the heat spreading over my cheeks and the choke that accompanies the shock. Damage control would be the next best thing, but it’s too late because I’ve already spit my drink back into my mug, and now it’s gross and I can’t drink this anymore. With as much dignity as I can muster, I feign composure and pull the drink away from my face, hoping I don’t have peppermint mocha dripping down my chin and all over my clothes. When I look back up, Dojoon is laughing, his head tipped back and his eyes squeezed in mirth. Even from across the noisy room I can hear the deep rumble of his voice and the bubbling of his laughter.

And thus begins Park Dojoon’s Yearly Tradition of Making Faces At Me From Across the Room.

The origin story to this tradition dates back years and years into our adolescent past. Somewhere in high school, I’ve adopted a certain aesthetic that romanticised my face’s natural resting state of indifference and existential ennui. The boys, silly and juvenile as teenage boys are, have made it some game to make me laugh. Smile. Any reaction that was not a scowl was good enough, and they had wagered favours and homework and vocal arrangements in that little garage band of theirs. 

To make a long story short, the game went on for years because not one of them has managed to elicit a reaction from me. Even when the get togethers had fizzled into the once a year dinners when we went our separate ways for university, they somehow managed to stubbornly refuse to outgrow the habit. For a while, I had thought they would eventually give up, get bored, realize I’m not the worth the effort and that they had better things to attend to. But not Dojoon.

Dojoon never gives up.

Fortunately, at the moment, there were other priorities. Such as their yearly provisions of entertainment. Their drummer cues their start, which also just so happens to be my cue to escape, so as the music fills the room, I swiftly exit stage left. Their music follows me into the kitchen, which is empty during this part of the program. I dump the contents of my mug into the sink and rinse it out and leave it to dry. By the time I come back outside, they’re closing their second song and moving on to the next Christmas song. I find a blindspot from the stage, just behind the grand staircase, and watch them from there.

As far as traditions go, this one isn’t so bad.

The first time I ran into Dojoon in the city was about 5 years ago, although ran into him would be something of an inaccuracy. If anything, it was his voice that drew me in. That voice—deep, dusky, and thick—both foreign and familiar that seemed to follow me even as I tried to run so far from the things I left behind. I was walking toward a usual coffee shop after running some errands and not looking forward to all the studying I needed to do that weekend afternoon when I heard him. Speaking at first. I thought I was hearing things, I’ve been up since early morning and running around here and there getting things done and I was sure it was the sun getting to me. But then he started singing and I knew for sure.

The smart thing was to walk away and move on, but despite my advanced degree I don’t really consider myself that smart so I stayed somewhere in the far back to watch them perform in one of the busking areas along the street. The image of the three of them—The Rose, they called themselves now with the addition of someone new—was both strange but at the same time comforting. Suddenly, even in the middle of a gathering crowd of fifty or so people, I didn’t feel so alone anymore.

And even now, as my singleness is being paraded around, I don’t feel so alone anymore.

Which is entirely inconvenient because Park Dojoon is wholly, completely, and utterly inconvenient.

And the night has only just begun.

I need a stronger drink.

***

Dojoon is laughing so hard at something I’m not sure he’s breathing. He’s surrounded by his friends, also his band—Hajoon and Jaehyeong—and if it feels like he’s known them forever, it’s because he has. Maybe the not-so-new guy, Woosung, but he fits in as though he grew up together with them, with us, right here just the same. They take up one corner of the lounge, pressed together on the one couch, not one of them sitting properly enough to give each other enough space, but not one of them seemingly eager to extricate themselves from their tangle of limbs. I suspect it’s the large amount of food they have sequestered for themselves: two large pizzas, chicken wings, some rice, some pasta, and chips. It’s a scene that has become familiar whether or not I want it to be. But the boys always eat well, and that’s exactly why my mother keeps inviting them everywhere.

An aside, I keep reminding my mother these boys need to get paid with actual money when they make them travel all the way up here to perform. Yes, they have their separate and independent day jobs. Yes, the band thing is a side hustle borne of passion. And yes, the three of them have lived within three blocks of our house and they’re here because they’re home for the holidays, and food is well and good but proper support is proper support. Not that my mother ever listens to me.

When Hajoon sees me, he claps quietly and reverently to himself and says, “Here comes the Ice Queen.”

Some habits died hard, and this one is something I know I’m taking to the grave. I never could shake it off then, there’s just no point trying to get rid of it now. Although I did aspire to feel like an Ice Queen, cool, calm, and composed. For the most part, I’ve got the low-energy thing down.

If perhaps ever so slightly less elegant.

As it is inevitable to run into them, I have fully accepted my fate and devised a contingency to walk past without so much as an incident. Sooner is better than later. After all, I’m just making my rounds because constant motion means less opportunities for stoppages and interviews from mothers and aunties hoping to introduce me to my future husband in an effort to save me from spinsterhood.

But…

But Hajoon and Jaehyeong are already looking up at me, with Jaehyeong raising his arms like a baby asking to be picked up even when he’s just waving at me. Woosung raises his glass and offers the loveseat none of them thought to take. And Dojoon…

I’m really just trying not to look at Dojoon. Or the monkey face he’s making. Pride is what keeps me going. No matter how many times he’s almost made me laugh, I will not laugh. On principle.

I school my features into its patented scowl. “You guys used to shiver when you did that.”

Right on cue, Jaehyeong wraps his arms around himself and shudders. Growing up, Dojoon, Hajoon, and Jaehyeong have been the constant thorns at my side. Before Dojoon saved up enough money from part-timing at the lodge to buy his own synthesizers, he would spend his afternoons at our house because we had a piano, and he banged away at the keys while I did my homework in the den. One summer before high school, he convinced Jaehyeong and Hajoon to join his band, and I’ve never known peace and quiet since.

One might be convinced to think that even as I’m looking at these grown men, all I see in my mind’s eye is the picture of the same annoying kids who used to steal all my snacks, and wrestled on the snow to settle disputes, and sang too loudly all the time. An age gap of two to three years is not a big deal now that we’re adults, but being at least two grades ahead of them felt like I was always a lifetime away. And for the most part, some days it still feels like I’m sixteen and the youngest of them is thirteen. So what if they’ve grown taller, and can more easily hover over me? So what if they’ve become successful in their individual endeavours and live responsible adult lives? Hajoon and Jaehyeong are still those two boys who sprayed whipped cream right from the can and straight into their mouths when whatever they were eating got too spicy. But Dojoon…

Dojoon and I have had a rather…tumultuous series of interactions in the past number of years, and as with closed systems, entropy has no other likely action but to increase. Thus, the chaotic factor to our dynamic.

So before anything else happens, I walk away.

I suppose in a way, that part hasn’t really changed either.

***

“You’re not avoiding me, are you?” Dojoon asks, walking into the staff kitchen where I hide out when being out there gets too much. He knows exactly what he’s looking for, even in the dimness of the room, and opens up an overhead cupboard and grabs a bag of marshmallows. He touches his ear—a nervous gesture. “More than usual anyway.”

The worst part is he knows exactly when to leave me alone and when to come bothering me. That he remembers all my hiding places. That he knows just about when I’ve gone and when it’s time to come get me. It’s very inconvenient.

“I’m not,” I answer, contemplating my mug of hot chocolate. I’ve stationed myself against an empty counter top, absently swirling my spoon in my drink and waiting for the heat to dissipate. It’s the social part of the evening and people are oversharing and matchmaking, and tonight it feels like I’ve used up all my energy just showing up.

“Really?” He comes over, joining me to lean against the countertop, and opening the bag of marshmallows and carefully pouring a piece at a time into my mug. “Because I don’t think we’ve been in the same corner of the room all night.”

“Are we ever supposed to be?” Because although the situation might have been similar growing up—we weren’t really friends if you really think about it—it had never been nearly as awkward as the past year.

“Aha!” A grin slips into his face, because the thing about Dojoon is that he can’t help but smile. As though he was born to outshine the sun. “But you have been avoiding me.”

Being around him triggers certain memories of rather emotional events and so I cannot be blamed for wanting to avoid the sense memory of said events. So, yes. In a way, I have been avoiding him. Not that I ever have been, or I suspect will be, proficient at keeping away from Park Dojoon.

His voice drops with contrition. “Are you still mad at me?”

“I’m…not?” I’m only slightly distracted by the feel of him next to me. Of the heat of him, the stir in the air, and the jumble of thorns in my stomach. I can never pinpoint the exact moment when it started being this way around him, only that all of a sudden I’m in the middle of this mess and I can’t find a way out.

“I know it’s not like it’s something I can take back, but I really am sorry.”

My gaze drops to his large veiny hands and I tear my eyes away at the line of electricity that runs up my spine. Instead, I focus on a void created by the shadows at a far corner of the room.

“You already apologised…It’s…it’s fine.”

It’s not something I like talking about but for the sake of transparency, earlier this year, while suffering through the middle portions of dissertation hell, I came into a snag as one so often does, and who else came to the rescue? Park Dojoon and his aggressive optimism and his aggressive helpfulness and his aggressive happiness. Like the universe decided to add fuel to the already burning fires of hell my life had become, Dojoon just had to come strolling by the coffee shop where I was very much Not Crying—don’t believe him when he says otherwise—and sat himself across me.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his usual sunny face contorting with worry. At this point, I already knew out that he had been living in the same area as I did but there was nothing I could do about increasing the distance between us. Furthermore, doing so meant I was affected by his proximity. I was not. Am not.

When I didn’t answer, as I never usually do, he followed up with, “How can I make it better?”

Because that’s his default answer to everything.

Cried because of an English test?

Dojoon comes running with chocolate ice cream.

Cried because a boy I liked broke my heart?

Dojoon comes running with Hajoon and Jaehyeong to give the poor other guy a piece of their minds. And then Dojoon comes running with his guitar and performs a one-man show of all my favourite songs.

Cried because my parents won’t stop fighting?

Dojoon comes running with his quiet and his silence and a listening ear and a shoulder to cry on.

Crying because my life is falling apart?

Of course, Dojoon comes running.

Now, what you need to know is at that time, the heartbreak was very raw and fresh and so I was angry and vindictive and I didn’t want help. Least of all from Dojoon. I wanted to break things and throw a tantrum. But given that any intense emotion causes my throat to seize and my stomach to twist in knots, which in turn results with my guts on the concrete, I took a deep breath instead. I’m not proud of my defence mechanisms, but I cannot be blamed for the words that I spat out. Okay, maybe just a little bit of blame is warranted. In retrospect, I might have been a little bit mean. More than usual. “I don’t know. Can you help with modal analysis, harmonic standing waves, and vibrometry?”

His long, knuckley fingers toyed with the edges of a napkin as he gave it thought. “I play electric guitar really good.”

It was like catching lightning and of course being totally unprepared for it.

Sound. Electricity. Lasers. Monster amps. Fun.

Dojoon with an electric guitar plugged into my deck? Not fun.

However, it was a matter of life and death and desperate times called for desperate measures. Despite my better sense, I spent the following weekends remaining in the semester and the subsequent summer break with Dojoon goofing off in my lab as I forced order and rationality to my little blip in the universe. The science is always easy. Dojoon…well…Dojoon remains one of the greater mysteries of the universe but he is beyond my field of study and thus, I wash my hands clean of him.

Anyway. Yeah. Basically, he saved my life and I still haven’t forgiven him for it.

And now he brings that up again?

“Will you accept an explanation?” he softly asks. “I really want to make it right. If you let me.”

Against my will, I look up to read the expressions playing on his face. When he apologised the first time, immediately after the fact, I didn’t give him any space at all to do more than say the words before I cut him off, telling him to forget about it. And then I walked away. I’ll be lying if I said I’m not haunted with guilt for what I did that night. But I panicked, and I know Dojoon knows I panicked. But if Dojoon can be patient with me, then there’s no reason I can’t confront these feelings and untie my tongue long enough to speak the words and let him do the same.

“Dojoon.” I’ve been practicing his name just so I can say it to his face, but I still can’t look him in the eye. “I’m sorry I walked out. You didn’t deserve that from me.”

“No, it’s totally okay. I understand. I’m the one who…” He puts the bag of marshmallows down before he completely crushes it in his hands; starts fiddling with the rings on his fingers in an attempt to reroute all that energy he always has so much of. “I’m really sorry. I completely misread that moment and I thought…Anyway, I’m sorry I kissed you.”

Again.

The word is unspoken but it rings between us just the same. After our last experimental setup, I bought him dinner because it was the least I could do. Dojoon is one of the few people who don’t mind my silence, and maybe the only other person who has the uncanny ability to draw out the side of me who doesn’t have to think first before I speak. And…and he doesn’t mind when I do go off on my rambling sprees, be it a long tirade on the work I have been doing and will eventually have to do, or whatever my most recent obsession is. It’s highly embarrassing, and yet I never feel judged or persecuted.

Dojoon is safe, and I know it.

And yet I can’t seem to spit out the words I’ve practiced in my head for this moment I knew was coming.

He huffs out a humourless laugh. “It’s not an excuse, but I, uh, I guess I thought you wanted me to. It was wrong of me to assume that.”

After he walked me to my door, there was that crackle of tension in the air that neither of us fully acknowledged other than ever so slightly making it obvious that we were both reluctant for the night to end. It wasn’t the first time, but it would have been the last time in a long while before we had any reason to see each other again. So as he said good night, he leaned in and ever so carefully pressed his lips to mine. However, before anything more could happen, he pulled away and spluttered out an apology.

He jumps off the counter as though struck with the business end of a pointed object. “I’m making it worse, aren’t I? I’m just gonna go now. Also your mom wants to see you. I think she finally found you a match. Or something.”

Dojoon shakes his head at the thought, as much in disbelief and exasperation as I am. I put the mug down on the counter, determined to…

Determined to do what exactly?

He crosses the room in easy strides and pushes the door open. Halfway out, he turns back toward me. “For the record, you never really walk out. You just step away for a bit and then after a little while there you are again. I know because I keep looking for you. But I won’t anymore. I know that makes you uncomfortable. So I won’t do that anymore. Unless your mom makes me, I guess.”

The next second passes too slowly, time seems to have stopped in that moment our eyes meet. Everything shifted in that conversation, the world feels upside down and my thoughts are spinning away from me.

But it’s too late to want to make sense of it first because Dojoon is out the door, and as the line of light from outside fades into a shadow at the clicking of the door, the realisation hits.

Dojoon is saying he’s out of my life.


	2. Chapter 2

In all of my fondest, and even most unpleasant, memories, Dojoon has found a way to insert himself into the narrative. Although we might not see each other in a frequency that so many relationships are hinged upon, his presence weighs more than the people I do come across on a regular basis. I can’t recall my best days without Dojoon being at the centre of it, and I can’t think of my darkest nights without thinking of the way Dojoon—in his own way, whether or not he realises it—rises like the sun chasing away the shadows to break the dawn.

And he doesn’t know because I never told him.

By the time I come back outside, Dojoon is being yelled at from both sides by Woosung and Jaehyeong because they’re playing this game and Dojoon messed up, and Hajoon is just laughing to himself off to one side and taking a video. This is a scene so intimately familiar to me, the inevitable rush of emotions brings a pang to my chest so painful I clutch at my breastbone. The grief is instantaneous, as is the anger and the confusion.

How dare he walk away from me?

Is this how he always felt all those times I chose to walk away because I refused to acknowledge the way he made me feel? Guilt doesn’t begin to describe what’s going on in my head right now. While there are times I deliberately ignore them—they’re just so loud sometimes?—I try to balance it out so they understand that I’m here for them? Because I do care about them. Somehow, they must know that. Right?

Dojoon’s laugh pierces through the white noise and the music and the mess of my thoughts like a blast of sunshine through a snowstorm. I expect to catch his gaze when I search him out across the room, but he isn’t looking at me. All this time I’ve gotten so used to having his eyes on me, the loss of him feels like plunging head first down the steepest slope with faulty skis, no safety net, and no soft pile of snow to land on.

How can he still laugh the way he does when I am slowly spiralling into a mess?

This is not a plot twist I can simply just accept without question, but what else can I do? My world is tilted upside down on its axis and no one else gets to make it right but me. I will not be defeated by circumstance, especially not one brought about by failures of communication. Instead, I choose carbs. And sugar. And maybe some wine. I’m on my second serving of cake when Hajoon—and his sugar sense—wanders in.

“I thought the cake wasn’t going to be served until later?” The placid smile on his face is misleading because he is Hajoon and at some point he grew up and that thing he does, noticing things, became one of his worst qualities directed at me.

“You can have all the cake you want just don’t tell on me.”

When we were kids, we used to sneak into the kitchen to steal cake and other desserts. We’d get one of each and then run off to our secret hiding place behind one of the storage cabins and have a little feast of sweets. Right now we’re behind the bar, stealing cake while everyone’s too busy being the social creatures they are.

“Are you okay?” he asks, taking a small plate and a dessert fork from the pile. “Your face is doing that thing when you’re upset. Should I get Dojoon?”

Hajoon and Jaehyeong both insist that my face does a thing, but I suspect they’re just saying that because that’s what they do. Nonetheless, I attempt a semblance of calm and relax my facial muscles. Out in the fray, Dojoon is chatting up some girls from the visiting guests.

“I think he’s busy,” I answer, spearing my fork through the soft lemon chiffon. “And also there is no need to get him.”

Hajoon carefully slices a square piece and admires his plate. “Regardless of need, I’m sure Dojoon is never too busy for you.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

Hajoon chews thoughtfully and swallows first before he speaks. “He did spend all that time helping you out with your dissertation. It’s not like he doesn’t have a full-time job elsewhere, or that he needs to prepare his own material, or, you know, rest. But because it’s you, because you need him, band practice has to suffer.”

He’s half-kidding about the band practice part. He has his teasing face on, but it doesn’t make it any better.

“I asked him.” I don’t know why I’m defending myself. It’s too late for that. “I asked him repeatedly if he was sure because I could reschedule my labs all the same if he was too busy or had other things to do.” Or people to meet. People he would rather spend the weekends with.

Hajoon just smiles and continues eating his cake.

“Also I think he’s mad at me,” I mutter into a forkful of marshmallow frosting.

“That’s impossible,” Hajoon says, “Dojoon can never stay mad at you. He’s viscerally incapable of being or staying mad at you. He—well he’s just like that.”

I grab a custard bar from the display. “I think I might have really done it this time.”

Hajoon just shakes his head. “Did you get the tickets I sent you?” 

Hajoon is a percussionist at the Philharmonic Orchestra. And when he’s not that, he teaches at a music school. If one were to ask me if I could ever have foreseen this, I’d say not at all. Yet somehow it all makes sense.

“You didn’t have to send me complimentary tickets. I would have bought them. And why did you send me two?”

He laughs. “So you can bring a date? And I get these complimentary tickets all the time. Don’t want them to go to waste, and I know if I give them to you you’re going to show up. No questions asked.”

“Hajoon…”

“Yes?”

I swallow my pride for what its worth. “You must know…that I…you…and Jaehyeong. You guys must know that I…that you…”

That I care about you? That even though I’ve been difficult and painfully introverted and anxious to the point where I couldn’t see past my comfort, I am still trying to be better. That every day, I am atoning for the times I could have been nicer to you when we were kids.

The words are easy in my head, but something happens between my brain and my mouth that everything I say comes out an inarticulate mess.

“Yes,” Hajoon answers, “I know. Jaehyeong knows it, too.”

“Because I’m not good at this…”

“Yeah, but you’re the first one to arrive at Jaehyeong’s photography exhibitions and the first one to buy one of his pieces. And you’re always coming to the Philharmonic’s shows, and you came to my students’ showcase, and you even attended Woosung’s design exhibits. When Dojoon’s mom was in the hospital, you didn’t have to do anything but you did everything. And you send us presents every year on our birthdays and Christmas. It’s pretty obvious. So, Jaehyeong and I, we know you love us. It’s just that some of us haven’t figured out how to be quiet enough to hear you say it.”

“I was pretty awful to you when we were kids.”

He tilts his head thoughtfully to the side. “When we were kids we also fed each other farts, so it’s really not a brainer why you didn’t want to be associated with a bunch of silly boys when you were just trying to live your best high school life.”

“I couldn’t wait to get out of here, I didn’t even say goodbye to you guys. I just left.”

Hajoon shrugs. “We forgive you. And anyway, I get it now. We all do. It’s just part of becoming old.”

“Thanks for the reminder? How dare you?” But I’m not upset. In fact, I feel light inside. Lighter, anyway. There’s one more thing on the agenda and I follow Hajoon’s gaze, at Dojoon currently trapped under a pile of toddlers. 

“Just talk to him,” Hajoon says, taking another slice of cake. “He deserves that much.”

  
  


***

My mother finds me before I can get to Dojoon.

Because, naturally, the universe isn’t going to make this easy for me.

She drags me across the lounge and off to the fireside to where the guests are seeking warmth from the cold, cold night. It’s a miracle she’s found some single dude out of all the couples in the resort, but that’s my mother. Sometimes, I’m just grateful she isn’t throwing me at any of my childhood friends because they’re about as single as I am. Which is very.

It doesn’t help that most of the girls I grew up with are either married or with children. And while I have nothing against the decisions they made, it doesn’t tally well with my mother. She always has been too competitive for her own good, and in the game of marrying off your daughters, she wasn’t exactly winning. Yet.

“This is Sungjin,” she gushes, pushing me toward a solidly built guy who is probably as warm on the inside as he looks on the outside. “He’s going to be a doctor!”

And so my mother leaves me with Sungjin The Soon To Be Doctor and we awkwardly stand there for about a minute before he clears his throat and comments on the state of the resort.

“It’s really festive,” Sungjin says, looking around the eyesore of wreaths, tinsel, and poinsettias thrown just about everywhere you can attach decorations on.

“My mother always did say, if you’re gonna do it, you might as well overdo it.”

Sungjin inclines his head with a grin. Pushes his hair off his brow with his fingers. I’ll give my mother this: she surely does know how to pick them. Sungjin does look like the kind of guy your mother will insist on parading around. There’s an easiness in his demeanour that’s welcoming and warm, but instead of putting me at peace it only makes worse this feeling swirling in my gut.

“I’m sorry…my mother…she…uh…”

“She means well,” Sungjin answers good-naturedly, “my mother is the same. So you don’t have to worry about explaining yourself. I know the drill.”

“You have to worry. Because I’m sure she’s already telling everyone that her future son-in-law is going to be a doctor so if I were you, I’d pack my bags and leave as soon as the snowstorm is over.”

I expect him to laugh, but he turns pensive for a moment. “But how do you feel about a winter wedding?”

“Personally, I prefer summer.” From the corner of my eye, I spot Dojoon and Woosung coming down from the main stairs. I catch Woosung’s eyes, and he gives me a friendly nod but Dojoon just continues forward. Dojoon doesn’t look any different, and he’s as happy as he usually is, and he hasn’t even stopped talking to Woosung about whatever it is he’s talking about, but…

But it’s weird when he’s not making faces at me. Especially when I’m in this situation, being introduced to someone new and counting the seconds before the other person gets bored with me. Dojoon would be nearby, ready to save the day. 

“Ah, that’s not going to work,” Sungjin says, leaning in conspiratorially. “It seems that you and I have irreconcilable differences.”

I turn to him, embarrassed by the knowing glint in his eyes. “I’m making that face, aren’t I?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” he teases. “But you should probably let your mother know that she doesn’t have to worry about you finding someone. It seems you’ve already found him.”

“You really got all that in the three minutes we’ve known each other?”

Sungjin laughs, runs his hands through his hair and shrugs. “I’ve seen that look before.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No,” he says, turning toward the direction Dojoon and Woosung disappeared to. “I’m sorry to be keeping you. Seems there’s somewhere else you’d rather be.”

“It’s…complicated.”

“Can’t be that complicated.”

“It’s a little complicated.”

“Uncomplicate it?”

I sigh. “I don’t know how.”

Sungjin sinks into the nearby chair and invites me to sit next to him. I do that, avoiding a mess of feet and legs, keeping up with introductions from his friends, and wondering if this is a good idea. But I have nothing left to lose, so I might as well. A third party objective opinion might provide the perspective I need.

However, this requires that I speak up so the struggle begins yet again. Or it would be if Sungjin’s friends weren’t already talking about what to eat for the Christmas dinner later on, and how to go about giving each other presents, and this and that. I’m too fascinated watching their dynamic to do anything else. Sungjin smiles apologetically at me.

“When you find him, just talk to him,” he says. “So many things are easily solved if people are just honest with their feelings.”

And I’ve been lying to myself for so long.

A too familiar voice calls out my name, and quiet settles around the group as we all look up. Jaehyeong grins and waves at us. To the group, he announces, “Your mom needs you.”

If my mother had her way, I would be locked up somewhere with Sungjin right now. So this? This is code for ‘I’m here to rescue you’. Although usually, it’s Dojoon who comes and rescues me from uncomfortable social situations. Nonetheless, I take this opportunity and give thanks for it. “I see. I’ll go find her, then.”

“Right now,” Jaehyeong says, gesturing at me to hurry along. “She said she needed you right now.”

Currently, though, I am trapped and unable to make a clean exit without embarrassing myself. Sungjin moves to help me up, but Jaehyeong offers his hand and pulls me out of the rabble without so much as an effort. Awkwardly, I bid Sungjin and his friends goodbye as Jaehyeong tugs at my hand and leads me away from this room and into the next.

“My mother isn’t actually looking for me, is she?” I ask, shuffling closer to Jaehyeong and avoiding the twos and threes of people along the way.

Jaehyeong shakes his head and laughs. “No, but you looked like you needed assistance. You were—”

“Making that face?”

“Yeah,” he grins. And when he does that face it’s difficult to feel anything but a wave of softness for him. He lets go of my hand to hold on to my shoulders so he can push me forward to whichever direction we’re headed to. “Just a little more,” he says, “It’ll be midnight and it’ll be the new year and then everyone’s going to sleep. Just about an hour more and this will all be over soon.”

The party yes, but this current bout of inner turmoil? “Where are we going?”

Because my default escape option is in the opposite direction, and I don’t have the words to confront Dojoon just yet. Unlike him, with whom words come so easy, words more often than not get in the way and fail me in the most spectacular of ways. Jaehyeong leads me back into one of the parlours, and I skid to a halt and push back because my mother is in there.

“My daughter’s not married!” My mother announces to her group of friends, all of which have married off their daughters. “She’s all alone! She’s going to be all alone! Forever! No one seems to want to keep her!”

Given all the exclamation points in her speech, I suspect Mother Dearest might have had a little too much wine, so it’s best to just steer clear of her. Ever since dad left us, she’s been so worried that I will be all alone for the rest of my life. Why she would think that, I don’t really know, but while I can’t blame her for how she manifests her anxiety and her issues, I can avoid her when she’s being like this.

Because, seriously, Mother…

“I can’t deal with this right now.” I turn around and push Jaehyeong back the way we came from, but instead of heading back toward the fireplace lounge, I take him through the service stairwells and out to the bar on the second floor.

And who else do we find there? Dojoon is on the baby grand piano, a little drunk by the look and sound of it, banging away to some ballad while Woosung sings into a bottle of beer. Hajoon is documenting the whole thing on his phone, following Woosung around before focusing on Dojoon. Jaehyeong finds their table and starts picking at the food. It’s only less quiet up here, with people laughing and talking.

I…

…go straight behind the bar and ask the bartender to hand me a bottle of Black Label and two glasses. Then I join Jaehyeong at their table and push him one of the glasses. He just stares at it and digs into the sushi platter. Woosung does come over, and I pour him a glass.

“Cheers,” he drawls, smiling so wide and so sweet, swaying toward me to clink our glasses together. “I thought you’d never show up. We have tradition!”

I let the alcohol burn down my throat and settle in my gut before answering. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

It being doing the New Year’s countdown together. We’ve been doing it for as long as we’ve been celebrating the New Year’s together with Woosung. It wasn’t always, but even though we weren’t in the same place at the same time, Hajoon and Jaehyeong would give me a call and we’d greet each other. Woosung, regardless of where we were, together or not, would make a joke, thusly:

Woosung’s smile goes all the way to his eyes, and the red flush of inebriation gives him a pixie-like glow. “You know, at some point, you’re gonna have to kiss someone at midnight. I don’t make the rules.”

Not that I’ve thought about it.

Not that I’m thinking about it.

Not that now I’m questioning why I haven’t before.

Because it’s not like my feelings have always been just platonic.

I don’t know when my feelings have shifted, just that I know that throughout the years, even when I saw other people (I was embarrassingly bad at it) and even though I know he’s seen other people (he’s much better at it), I always circle back to him

To Dojoon.

Who is avoiding me.

And that’s a problem.

Minutes to midnight, the crowd gathers around and starts dancing to the heavy electronic music pounding against the speakers. Dojoon, Woosung, and Jaehyeong are somewhere in the fray dancing to the loud music while Hajoon keeps me company at our corner table. 

“You’re making that face,” Hajoon comments, chuckling into his soda.

“One of these days we’re going to have to have A Conversation about these accusations of my face doing things as though a face isn’t supposed to be doing things.”

Hajoon’s chuckle evolves into a laugh. “You’re thinking face. You did it a whole lot while you did your extra math and science studies while we were working here over the summers.”

“You were the worst employees ever.”

“We ate all the food.”

“You ate all the food.”

Hajoon glances over his shoulder, at Dojoon and Woosung singing loudly to each other. “You didn’t do the thing yet.”

“I didn’t exactly get the chance to do the thing yet.” I’m not even surprised Hajoon knows. In a way, I should have expected that. “The night’s been chaotic.”

“The night, sure.”

“What does that mean?”

Hajoon solidly meets my eyes. “You’ve had years of chances. Even when you were seeing other people, it’s not like you both completely lost the opportunity. You can’t tell me you didn’t even think or suspect just a little bit that there was always something more. That guy isn’t exactly Mr. Subtle.”

“That guy is also That Guy to just about everybody else. And I…”

“And you’re you.”

And I’m running out of time.

Because I know for sure that I don’t want Dojoon kissing anyone else at midnight.

So against my better judgment, I grab my empty glass, and Hajoon takes one look at my miserable and bewildered face and pours me a line. I smile gratefully, take a deep breath, lift the glass to my lips and swallow the whiskey in one gulp. There’s some tearing up, a bit of coughing, but thankfully it’s a non-incident. I slap Hajoon’s shoulder as I leave our table and jump—figuratively—into the mosh pit.

As someone who’s spent a lifetime avoiding crowded rooms, the press of people is a nightmare and I can’t breathe and my vision blurs, but I have to get to Dojoon one way or another. And it cannot wait. The crowd at full capacity on a regular night means the bar is packed, but on New Year’s Eve it feels beyond acceptable regulation levels because of everyone on their feet and dancing and drinking. Up here, it’s mostly a younger crowd though there are the few middle aged patrons partying along and it’s a mess of limbs and body parts as I’m weaving my way through the fringes. I have no idea how anyone can communicate like this, but my impulsive rush into the pit does not offer me any more time to think about a strategy.

Somewhere in the middle of the dance floor, Dojoon is dancing with someone—of course, he is—and I don’t know if I should wait or cut in. And if I do cut in, how am I supposed to handle a confrontation if it comes? Asking assistance from Woosung and Jaehyeong cross my mind as well, especially with all these sharp elbows digging into me, but this is something I have to do by myself. For myself. Because I owe myself as much. At least if it does turn out that I am too late, the heartbreak will be mine alone. For a little while, anyway. With my short list of options dwindling, I seize my last chance, and hope, by some miracle, that it actually works.

So, yeah. The direct approach it is.

With the hard bass thumping against my ribcage, I brace myself and enter the pit one step at a time. Shoulder to shoulder with random people out here living their best lives, I make my slowly through the crush of bodies moving to the kicks and the snare, removed from the escalating soundscape that rises and inflates and fills the bar. I only hear my breathing and the rapid beating of my heartbeat. I only see Dojoon.

The music fades into the deafening cheers of the crowd, and all I hear now is the countdown to midnight.

10.

9\. 

8.

I push forward, still too far away to reach him. A press of bodies push me a few steps back, but I muster enough strength to go against the tide.

7.

6.

5.

The seconds tick by, and my eyes are focused on my goal. I have to get to him, one way or another. I call out his name, but the countdown is too loud and he’s facing another way, and my voice doesn’t carry through the adrenaline rush of the room

4.

The crowd vanishes in my periphery, and the flashing strobe evens out into single spotlight on Dojoon.

3.

The noise stills into a quiet echo of silence.

2.

Dojoon turns toward his dance partner. Leans forward. 

1.

I turn away and fight my way out of the pit.

“Hey!” Woosung calls out for me as I tumble out of the rabble of Happy New Years and couples kissing. “Happy New Year!”

I don’t know what to say, so it’s a good thing I can’t speak. Embarrassment floods me, rising to my face and suffocating my senses. Every atom in my body is screaming to leave and tend to my own wounds far from where anyone can see me. Not even my mother can fault me for wanting to escape and curl up with a hot mug of chocolate, but I’m sure she’ll try.

Woosung takes one look at my surely pitiful face and says, “Do you need a hug? You look like you need a hug. What happened?”

I shake my head, gesture ambiguously at the crowd, and Woosung’s gaze follows. His brows furrow, confused for a moment, but I am at capacity and in no way, shape, or form to explain that my world has just caved upon itself. With one last surge of energy, I point toward the direction of the exit and make my leave. 

Regret comes soon after because I didn’t bother to get my coat—on account of taking the route that best avoids my mother, and then some. Trudging through the snow in a dwindling snowstorm in just a fleece sweater, if you really think about it, may as well be my punishment for all these years I’ve let my pride dictate my actions. Pride and fear together is not a good combination when the thing you’ve been denying all these years requires vulnerability.

The music behind me fades into a dull hum, and I look up at the fireworks bursting into blooms of light in the sky.

Happy New Year to me, I guess?

“What are you doing out here?”

Surprise doesn’t begin to describe the feeling of standing here waiting for Dojoon to get to where I am. Because, “What are you doing here?”

Dojoon shakes off the snow from his hair. “Where are you going?”

“Why are you here?”

“Where are you going?”

Unlike me who came out in a rush, Dojoon had enough time, and I suspect presence of mind, to remember to put on his puffy coat and his gloves. Meanwhile, here I am pretending the cold doesn’t bother me at all.

I don’t have a good enough answer for him that isn’t the truth, so I say “I wanted to see the fireworks better.”

Dojoon shakes his head and laughs. He looks up at the light show, eyes wide and lips agape. “The view is better up on the balcony?”

“Is it?” For the first time all night, I allow myself to really look at him, at his sooty lashes, his curve of his nose, his Cupid bow lips, and even the way his ears stick out. The light from the sky colors his face in reds and pinks, and the color suits him so well I can’t dissociate him from it. “You should get back to her.”

“To who?”

“The, uh, girl you were…kissing?”

“I…wasn’t?”

“You weren’t?” The skip in my heartbeat is so sudden, so powerful, I can’t breathe.

“Not gonna lie, I did consider it. But…”

“But?” The word comes out as a sigh.

He shrugs. “I went to look for you instead.”

“You came after me?”

Dojoon turns to me, inclines his head with a lopsided smile. “I always come after you.”

“That’s so unfair, though.” I’m momentarily paralysed with the thought. “You shouldn’t always have to do that.”

“Running after you is really just the only way I can get to you. It’s not like you need me for anything else. You’re pretty good at—”

“Being alone, I know. I’ve been told.” I lean forward to better see the expression on his face. The lights reach out here just enough, but it’s still dim and I don’t know what to make of the shadows playing on his face.

“So I have to come to you because that’s how this works, you and me.”

“You and me?”

Dojoon smiles. A slow, seductive, honest-to-goodness smile. “Yeah. You and me.”

I can’t breathe. “I know walking away is easy—”

“You think walking away is easy for me?”

“It’s not?”

“I know walking away is easy for you—”

“It’s not.”

“It’s not?”

“It’s not.” I sigh. “But it is easier than my other option and I…I’m sorry, Dojoon. And I don’t know if it’s too late to apologise but I’ll do it anyway. I’m sorry I couldn’t face you properly after you kissed me. I…”

“Panicked, I know.”

“I did. But I should have…I should have talked to you. I shouldn’t have left it as it was and let you think what you thought. I’ve been so unfair to you all these years.”

“By that reasoning it would appear that I’ve been forcing myself on you all these years and—”

“You haven’t, though.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” he says, considering me for a minute, lips pursed and eyes searching my face. “You haven’t been unfair to me because it’s not like I’ve been pining after you all these years. You know I’ve seen other people. It’s not like I was waiting for you, or anything. Or maybe I was, but not the way you think.”

I draw in a deep breath. Look up at the sky. Then back at him. “I don’t even know what I think, honestly. Or when I even started thinking of you as…”

“As…?” He asks, raising a brow and grinning at me.

As everything?

I’ve been denying how I feel, and now I’m certain he’s been denying what he wants.

“Stop looking at me like that,” he says, his voice coming down to a whisper.

"Like what?” I shiver, but it has less to do with the cold.

“That’s the face that gets me in trouble.” Dojoon’s face is clear of all hints of teasing.

“What face am I making?”

“The face that makes me want to kiss you.” He turns away. Takes half a step back. The smile and the lightness is gone.

My mind scrambles for an anchor. “You kissed me over there for the first time. Just there on the top of the bunny slope.”

“You remember?” But instead of turning toward the direction of the slopes, he returns his heated gaze on me.

“Of course I remember. It was my first kiss. Don’t you remember?”

“How could I forget?” he said, circling me in slow steps and wrapping me in the heat of him. When he walks behind me, I feel his presence and the cool wisp of his breath against the shell of me ear. “You pushed me and I rolled all the way to the bottom.”

I whirl around to face him. “Okay, that happened but I did not push you! You overreacted and then you fell over and it’s not even that steep. You skid down the slope on your own and you were barely hurt.”

“I probably deserved to get pushed.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “You probably didn’t want me to kiss you.”

“I did,” I confess. “I did want you to kiss me. Both times. Sometimes I think you knew I wanted you to.”

“I didn’t know.” Dojoon opens his eyes slowly. “But I hoped you did.”

“I did. And I do, right now. And not because it’s the New Year and everyone’s getting kissed. Because it’s you. Because somewhere along the way, I started thinking of you as someone who I don’t want to just be friends with. That maybe I never really did, I just never realised until…Until I thought it might be too late.”

The rush of heat meets the cold sting on my face, but that’s the least confusing thing going on right now. My chest feels like it’s about to explode and I duck away from Dojoon’s eyes on me. “Say something?”

“I don’t know what to say.”

I keep my eyes down, on his boots and our footprints on the snow. “You work for a web video production company. You do web radio. You do web videos all the time. You are paid to talk for a living. You can’t run out of things to say now.”

His hand twitches and time seems to have stopped. I can’t breathe. Is this it? Is this my answer? Have I been mistaken all along about him and me in the context of a him and me? Is the cold finally getting to me? I rub my hands together and breathe into my cupped palms.

“I could just kiss you?”

My eyes drift upwards to his eyes, and he smiles a slow, dazzling smile.

He leans forward, closing the distance between us with a soft press of his warm lips against mine, just at the corner. Once, twice, tracing the line of my bottom lip before slipping his arm around my waist to pull me closer. He grins into my mouth and giggles at every kiss.

“It’s cold,” I whine, snuggling deeper into him.

He wraps his coat around me. “Come here.”

I crane my head up to press my nose against the underside of his jaw. “You could just give me your jacket.”

“But then I’ll be cold. This way we’ll both be warm.”

I don’t contest that logic. “I hate it when you say things like that because I can’t hate you.”

And I don’t think I ever truly could. The kisses go on until Woosung, Hajoon, and Jaehyeong come barging in, throwing snowballs at us. Instead of retaliating, Dojoon whisks me off far away from New Year’s parties and nosy friends, and even nosier aunties. Because, after all, when you feel like you’ve been waiting your whole life, wouldn’t you want to start on the important things right away?

And that’s just exactly how I want to begin the new year.


End file.
